Well, she is a very impressive woman...
"Never hit a man when he's down. He may get up."
Despite the enduring popularity of George Macdonald Fraser's novels, the exploits of Harry Flashman, the school bully who made Tom Brown's schooldays such an ordeal and whose subsequently chronicled military career saw him popping up across the globe at historically propitious moments, didn't have much luck with the big screen. An attempt to film Flashman, the first novel, with John Alderton as the bounder and Richard Lester directing was cancelled only days before shooting was scheduled to start in 1970 and even after Lester and Macdonald were coming off the success of The Three and Four Musketeers, 1975's Royal Flash came almost as close to being cancelled before a last-minute change of studios saved the day only for the film's box-office failure to kill off all hope of sequels. Which is a shame, because it's a wonderful comedy adventure spin on The Prisoner of Zenda (the novel's conceit is that it was Anthony Hope who stole the idea after Flashman told him of his exploits) which just happens to involve real historical figures like Otto Von Bismarck (a coldly pompous Oliver Reed), Lola Montes (Florinda Bolkan), King Ludwig of Bavaria and even bare-knuckle boxer-turned-Member of Parliament John Gully (`Our `Enry' Copper, dubbed by Norman Rossington).
Flashman's certainly a wonderful comic hero for an increasingly cynical and disillusioned age. The hero of Afghanistan is almost the British Empire incarnate in all its self-righteous self-serving cynicism, a shamelessly xenophobic exploiter who wraps himself up in all the great British values he doesn't hold but who still constantly ends up doing some good by complete accident and bad luck while trying to fill his boots. He's not exactly a complete coward, though he always tries to manipulate the odds in his favour ("Come on down and fight like a man." "Don't be ridiculous!"), he's certainly a braggart and a bigot and the kind of person who is always absolutely guaranteed to let you down and steal your girlfriend and your last five pounds in the process, yet, as Big George Webley says in one of the DVD and Bluray's accompanying featurettes, you still want to be his mate.
While Fraser's first choice for the role, Errol Flynn, was too dead and his second, David Niven, too old, Malcolm McDowall makes a very pleasing and surprisingly acrobatic substitute even if the surface emphasis shifts from charm to selfishness, and he's surrounded by an excellent supporting cast - Alan Bates on wonderfully witty form and an excellent foil for McDowall in the Rupert of Hentzau role, Britt Ekland cast against type as a frigid duchess, Alastair Sim (not given much to do in one of his last roles), Lionel Jeffries, Tom Bell, Joss Ackland, Christopher Cazenove (who could have made a decent Flashman himself had his profile been higher), Michael Hordern, Bob Hoskins and David Jason. It's given top notch production values too, from cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth to production design by Terence Marsh and some excellent location work in Bavaria. All of which would just be window dressing if it weren't for the film's wickedly entertaining sense of fun that at once manages to debunk period swashbucklers while celebrating them, with Lester throwing in some wonderful sight gags (one with a bored maid washing the floor at an especially dramatic moment in the story is a particular gem) without losing sight of the story. As the TV spot included on the disc says, it's `A terribly funny film with absolutely no redeeming social value,' and one which definitely seems to have improved with age.
Like Fox's DVD release, Twilight Time's limited edition region-free Blu-ray of the general release version doesn't offer any of the deleted scenes (the film was trimmed after previewing badly, losing Arthur Lowe and Roy Kinnear's scenes) but does have the same satisfying extras package, pride of place going to an enjoyable audio commentary with McDowall affectionately looking back on the film (he's particularly good on his warm relationship with Bates and how they had to rewrite the script to appeal to his admitted vanity and on Sim's tendency to sputter his lines causing him to despair of having to dub his lines). Also included are two featurettes featuring Fraser and both his admirers and some of those who worked on the film, one on the making of the film, the other on the Flashman books, and isolated music and effects track and a booklet (a different one to that included on Fox's DVD). The impressive transfer is a noticeable improvement over the DVD version, though like many 70s films it does occasionally have a deliberately diffused look.